SHARE

Prostitution, racketeering case fortified, authorities say

By {screen_name}
Saturday, December 27, 2008

The case against Nan O’Reilly as the leader of a criminal enterprise based in a Grand Junction house of prostitution is growing stronger, prosecutors said.

O’Reilly, the 58-year-old owner and operator of Fuji Oriental Massage, 762 Horizon Drive, which prosecutors said was a thriving illicit business, is being held in lieu of $250,000 bond in the Mesa County Jail.

Based on Yu’s cooperation, prosecutors could charge “thousands more” acts of prostitution supervised by O’Reilly at Fuji, Nerbonne said.

An affidavit unsealed Friday revealed that law enforcement mounted an 11-month investigation into Fuji under the Colorado Organized-Crime Control Act.

Investigators spoke with customers who went to Fuji for legitimate massages and were ushered out when they declined sexual services. Investigators also spoke with seven customers who purchased and received sexual services, the affidavit said.

O’Reilly faces two felony counts each of racketeering and pimping and misdemeanor counts of keeping a place of prostitution, promoting sexual immorality and pandering. She also is charged with tax evasion. She has been accused of filing a false tax return for 2007, failing to report more than $70,000 in income while reporting she earned more than $229,000 that year.

O’Reilly was arrested in November and Yu was arrested the following week in Illinois in connection with pimping charges.

Grand Junction police said eight women who worked at Fuji had criminal histories of prostitution in several states, including Colorado, Alabama, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas.

In addition to recruiting several law enforcement agencies for the investigation, Grand Junction police enlisted the city’s solid-waste division to help examine trash thrown out by Fuji and code-enforcement officials to look into whether employees were living on the premises.

One of the code-enforcement officers was greeted by a naked woman who worked there, the affidavit says. The woman told the officer the owner wasn’t present.

That led investigators to infer that O’Reilly would have “ample time to tell (officers) that they lived at her Lakeside residence and not inside the business.”

Prosecutors had opposed a request by O’Reilly’s lawyer, Steve Laiche, to reduce her bond from $250,000 cash or surety to $25,000 cash only.

O’Reilly was willing to wear a device that would alert authorities if she were to leave Mesa County, Laiche told Mesa County District Judge Valerie Robison.

Laiche offered to turn over O’Reilly’s passport to get the bond modified.

There was nothing to prevent her from removing the device, driving to Colorado Springs and flying out of the state, he said.

Robison refused to modify O’Reilly’s bond, which would allow her to pay a bondsman, or surety, $25,000 or 10 percent of the bond, to gain her freedom.

The bondsman would assume the risk for the remaining $225,000 if O’Reilly were to leave the jurisdiction. O’Reilly, however, would forfeit the $25,000 even if she were to attend all her court hearings.

If she were to post the full $25,000 herself, she would pay that amount, but could recover the bond at the completion of all proceedings against her.